1. Field
The invention presented here concerns an adapter for a handpiece system, especially for use in conjunction with medical and dental light emitting apparatus for the transmission of light such as may be used to cure photo-polymerisable materials, particularly for the filling of cavities and securing of braces, as well as for providing proof of caries or for bleaching the surface of teeth.
2. Description of Prior Art
The power supply for light emitting apparatus of this kind is provided either by means of batteries, which are housed in the hand-held equipment, as described in the FR 2818892 A1, for example, and/or through connection to an external power, or voltage source. As a preference, this is effected by coupling the light emitting apparatus to a supply hose, or conduit, provided for those air-driven appliances present in a dental unit. This enables the light emitting apparatus to be used as part of the existing, familiar unit without incurring any additional procurement costs for control devices.
Supply hoses for air-driven appliances contain several media supply lines, including a twin-pole power lead for a power supply with voltage of 3.3V. In accordance with certain standards, such as European Standard, EN 29168 (=ISO 9168), the two ends of the power lead exit at a prescribed point in the form of electrical contacts, located at an appropriate distance from other media supply lines and integral with the plane surface ending at the connection of the supply hose. This standard, however, contains no directions with regard to the arrangement of the two contacts' polarity and this is not noted during assembly of the dental unit or connection of the supply hoses, which in the end means that it is impossible to tell which of the two contacts represents the positive or negative poles. This is not necessary in usual practice, since small light bulbs located in the air-driven appliances for merely illuminating the preparation area are fed via these contacts, and they light up irrespective of the polarity arrangement.
In contrast to this, it is an absolute necessity to identify the polarity of the supply hose contacts when operating specialized light emitting apparatus (and before its initial use) and to match this polarity to that of the contacts of the light emitting apparatus, since light-emitting diode(s) (LED) used in the light emitting apparatus rely on correct connection.
Determining the polarity of the two contacts is a task currently carried out by a service technician, who has to make a special trip to the user for this purpose. If the polarity of the contacts of the supply hose does not match the contact arrangement in the light emitting apparatus, then the technician cross-plugs the connections of the supply hose in the dental unit.
One manufacturer provides a test appliance with each piece of light emitting apparatus, with the aid of which the user can himself establish whether the contact arrangement in the supply hose matches that in the light emitting apparatus. But even in this case a service technician has to carry out any possibly necessary correction to the supply hose connection. Both variants, therefore, are extremely time consuming and costly.
Because of this, there exists an urgent need for a simpler and cheaper solution which enables the user himself to put the light emitting apparatus into operation without specialist support.